Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss
by Gray Doll
Summary: Mild season 6 spoilers / "And Teresa has to feel like she'd do anything to get him back." JanexLisbon


**Disclaimer:** The lines in italics (well, only the letter, actually) are from the poem "Love's Secret" by William Blake. And of course I do not own The Mentalist's characters. If I did, bad things would happen.

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**Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss**

Teresa Lisbon isn't who she used to be.

She is no longer the weak, simpering little girl who fell too easily, who gave her heart away gladly, who threw herself into the fire willingly and always wondered why she kept getting burned.

No, she is a survivor. A believer, and a deceiver. A lover and a fighter, and she'll break all the hearts she can until she finds the one she wants to mend back together and call her own.

There is no weakness, no trust, no vulnerability.

At least that's what she thought.

Because Patrick Jane has to be a fickle, bitter, broken thing (so much like she is, but she'll never admit it). And then she has to feel like she'd do anything to get him back.

It doesn't work that way. He's supposed to be wrapped around her little finger – _she _is _not _supposed to be wrapped around his.

Perhaps it is her own damn fault this time, for letting her guard down. But Teresa can't help it – this is a game, and she always liked to play games.

Only this time, she feels like she's playing follow the leader, while he keeps making up the rules as things go along.

She hates herself for turning back into that sad, sorry little girl. She tells herself that she's Teresa Lisbon; she is not weak or pathetic, and she does _not _let herself get burned over and over again.

Except when Patrick Jane comes into view, and then she's nothing more than a dying moth that can't help herself.

She doesn't know and doesn't care what day it is when she finds a cream colored paper folded neatly on her desk, with a single blood red rose attached to it. When she reads it, tears well in her eyes, because she understands.

'_Never seek to tell thy love,  
Love that never told can be;  
For the gentle wind does move  
Silently, invisibly_.'

And clearly Red John understands too. That the little girl who would give everything away for her love, the love that plays with her and renders her nothing short of a willing sacrificial lamb, is back.

She wonders what will happen once everything is over. Will he want to join his dead family? It isn't impossible. Will he finally let himself love again? Less likely.

But this doesn't hurt her as much as she thought it would, because it's so much worse now that Patrick _knows; _she's sure that every time he looks into her eyes he sees the pain and love and sorrow and the stupid flicker of hope reflected in them (and knowing that he's using all those things to push her away make her feel like he's stabbing knives in her gut).

Then there's blood on his hands, and it doesn't surprise her. The two years they spend apart are the best and the worst of her life.

The first week, she cries because she can't help herself. She sits curled up on her timeworn couch with a bottle of scotch and lets tears stream freely down her cheeks, because he didn't even take the time to say goodbye.

After everything they've been through, after everything she's done for him, he owed her at least a proper farewell.

Of course she always knew something like this would happen after he got his revenge. She isn't a foolish little schoolgirl (not anymore), and she doesn't believe in happy endings. In all her nightmares the game ended either with one of them dead or with them apart.

It's Cho who finds her one night, sitting in front of the fireplace and watching the flames burning low in the grate. She's drunk and she doesn't care; she doesn't even bother to protest when he scoops her up and carries her to the bedroom without a word. The next day he's still in her house, and when she enters the kitchen on wobbly legs and with a pounding headache, he asks her why she's acting so weak.

She tells him she doesn't know.

And she promises herself that she won't turn into a sniveling idiot because of a man who left her.

In a way, she is free – and isn't this what she always wanted? There is no Patrick Jane around to toy with her emotions, to draw her in only to push her away when she comes too close.

She should be happy that he's finally out of her life.

Only she isn't.

It's when he sends her the first letter that she starts weeping all over again, that she lies awake on her bed until the first crack of dawn and finally admits to herself that she wants him back.

Twenty months pass before she receives the one letter from him that she tears to pieces and throws into the fireplace. '_Love, Patrick' _it says, and she stares at the single word for hours, her vision blurry with tears she refuses to shed. Before she can realize what she's doing the paper is nothing more but tiny crumpled shreds in her fist.

Because she knows he doesn't mean it. He never did.

But she smiles and laughs when they're back together, because that's what is expected of her. A part of her truly _is _happy that he's returned, and they fall back into the same patterns quicker than she'd thought they would.

They solve cases, they banter and they flirt. Like they've always done. It's the same game, only this time it has only two players and there is no blood staining the board.

And no one bothers to ask if she wants this.

All her life people kept telling her how good and honest she was. How bad an actress she was. How it was not in her to manipulate, to deceive.

But now she's tricked them all, no one even suspects that the castle is crumbling behind the seemingly strong walls she's built all around it.

So she acts.

_A believer, and a deceiver_, she reminds herself, and suddenly it's easy again. _A lover, and a fighter_.

Instead of walking into the flames' embrace, she lights the fires herself and then pretends to extinguish them. Her smiles are wide, happy – but their edges are sharper than ever. She throws her arms around men's necks and pulls their mouths to hers, but she always returns to her fickle, broken Patrick (who now pretends to have been put back together).

(As if she doesn't know him.)

She lets her hair grow longer, and she wears dresses when she goes out at night. She stays up till morning and dances until her feet hurt and Patrick has to carry her back to her car. She laughs in his arms all the way from the bar to the car and he laughs too, either because he believes he's finally made her happy, or because he simply doesn't know what else to do any more.

She's fine with it either way.

"The roles are reversed," she whispers to him one night, before she crashes her lips to his and pushes him down onto his bed. When morning comes, she leaves him sleeping and skips down the streets with her high heels in her hands, humming to herself as she makes her way to her house.

Her favor's bought and sold, and she lives each day like she's dead tomorrow.

"This isn't you," he tells her when he's had enough, and she laughs in his face.

"Whose fault is that?" she asks, giving him a small smirk before sauntering away. That same night she sleeps with another man, and after she kicks him out she opens a bottle of scotch and grabs a handful of sleeping pills.

_No weakness, no trust, no vulnerability_, she repeats to herself. _And I'll break all the hearts I can until I find the one I want and break it as well_.

She has the right to do it, she knows. After all, he did it first.


End file.
